


The Drainpipe

by RadAceFriend



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, I make things suck for an unnamed character until the world ends because of it, Intrusive Thoughts, stress piling up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-02
Updated: 2020-02-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:50:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22534261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RadAceFriend/pseuds/RadAceFriend
Summary: Unfortunately, the world ended because the drainpipe broke.
Kudos: 1





	The Drainpipe

**Author's Note:**

> A bit over a year ago I had a dream where I was writing my GCSE English creative writing controlled assessment during the exam time without any preparation. I don't know where this dream came from considering it had been four years since that controlled assessment, but it was there. In my dream the first line of my piece was "Unfortunately, the world ended because the drainpipe broke." I woke up with that line stuck in my head without any plot. Then, out of nowhere, I got this idea and decided to go with it.
> 
> Honestly the first line is older than the dream I had last year. When I was little my mum would send me and my sister to a drama club some days during the holidays and one of the games we played was "Fortunately, Unfortunately", where all of us would sit in a circle and make a story with statements that alternated between starting with 'fortunately' and 'unfortunately'. I was about five and had no idea what to say when it got to my turn and so I said "unfortunately the drainpipe broke". The only other parts I remember from that story was that later on the drainpipe was fixed (though it may have broken again later on) and that the plot was related to a dentist in some way.

Unfortunately, the world ended because the drainpipe broke.

Of course it wasn't just that. But there's only so much straw a camel can carry and eventually you end up with a broken back.

First the rent was due on the house. A near empty bank account cried out as her half was sent off. Then the landlord requested the other half which was how she found out about the end of her relationship as her boyfriend revealed he'd be moving his stuff out over the weekend because he was moving in with his other girlfriend who didn't have anger issues and smiled more and didn't freak out when something was wrong.

Power curled through her veins and her clenched fists and reminded her how easy it would be to wipe his family and his bloodline from the face of the earth.

She swallowed down the urge and attacked her punching bag instead of her ex and screamed into a pillow at the thought of having to make next month's rent.

She went into her overdraft to pay and lost more weight than she could afford but she refused to leave the house because she had worked so hard for this and she'd be damned before she had to leave.

Her job let her go and despite everyone saying that more jobs than ever were available no-one ever seemed to be hiring or at least not hiring _her_. It didn't matter anymore that she had a degree because no-one wanted her there.

When she got a job in customer service she almost wished she hadn't, because all the customers did was shout about discounts and freebies and how they'd get her fired and every one made her blood roar in her ears about how this could be stopped and she didn't have to answer to anyone else ever again. ~~That she'd rise up and rule and everyone who angered her again would be nothing but ashes and dust and blood.~~

She spent night with her punching bag, the leather cracked and flaking from the heat inside her. Sometimes her feet left charred marks behind her and she'd almost melted right through the soles of her shoes.

She paid rent but couldn't make the heating bill. She shivered beneath a pile of blankets and her duvet. The power inside her didn't bother to warm her. It would char everything else to nothing and nothing and _glorious empty nothing_ while her lips went blue and her teeth chattered so viciously she thought they might crack.

She still spent nights with her punching bag. The only change was that now she spent afternoons with it too.

Her mother ~~not her mother not really~~ phoned with a reminder of her age, and the next girl would be born any day now and she'd need to be ready for the responsibility and she felt and heard each heartbeat as she pictured the woman being ripped apart because this wasn't fair she was barely coping and her mother wanted her to take in a _baby_ just because of the way it would be born ~~like her and her grandmother and all that line of women back to the beginning.~~

That night her fists nearly made her punching bag catch fire and her swear steamed off her body as something that could be smoke curled from her mouth in time with her panting. She was so angry and the voices were so loud and she thought about her mother telling her once that she could rip he world apart and it was her responsibility to not do that and to raise the next so that she wouldn't either.

_The world seemed to want to be ripped apart and burned down for the way it was treating her._

She couldn't tell if the thought was her own or if it came from the power inside her and that was probably bad but she couldn't make herself care.

The drainpipe broke.

The drainpipe broke and water dripped down the wall and onto her and _this camel was no longer accepting straws._

The drainpipe broke and it was such a small thing but she'd had no heat for a month and been insulted daily for half a year and her boyfriend left her and that was why she didn't have enough money to eat and she was _so angry_.

The drainpipe broke and it was the straw that broke the camel's back.

Unfortunately, the drainpipe broke, and the world shuddered and broke and burned and _ended_.

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to leave what the actual 'power' thing is mysterious because since it's written from the point of view of a character who knows what it is I thought it wouldn't make sense for her to go off on a tangent about what this thing she keeps thinking about is. As such, there are references to things that she knows but the audience doesn't that don't get clarified because she doesn't see the need. This was also a way for me to avoid having to put hard rules on this 'power' when I wanted it to be an unknown.


End file.
